Bodies in Space in Christine Montalbetti’s La vie est faite de ces toutes petites choses

Epp, Marla

Bodies in Space in Christine Montalbetti’s La vie est faite de ces toutes petites choses

Author

Epp, Marla

Date

2025

Keywords

Christine Montalbetti, La vie est faite de ces toutes petites choses, space, bodies, animals, details

Abstract (summary)

In La vie est faite de ces toutes petites choses, Christine Montalbetti recounts the NASA STS-135 mission with great precision, omitting no bodily detail or even insect. She foregoes a grandiose narrative to linger on minutiae, emphasizing that space travel, despite being an extraordinary event, continues to entail quotidian concerns. I study how Montalbetti uses the atypical setting of outer space to draw attention to common human experiences, and, in particular, the physical aspects of daily life that are perhaps overlooked on Earth. As Montalbetti reminds us, we always have a body. Even if we might not be bodies in outer space, we are always bodies in space. Earth, as she insists, is a shared space, populated not only by humans but also by numerous other living organisms. I demonstrate that, as the novel progresses, Montalbetti questions the distinction between the ordinary and the extraordinary. For her, the most habitual of activities, being a body interacting with other living beings in a shared space, is, itself, the most extraordinary thing. The STS-135 mission, then, exemplifies not the possibility of independence from the Earth, but rather the interconnectedness of all living beings.

Publication Information

Epp, M. (2025). Bodies in Space in Christine Montalbetti’s La vie est faite de ces toutes petites choses. Contemporary French and Francophone Studies, 29(3), 482–494. https://doi.org/10.1080/17409292.2025.2505337